


Plaything

by demiksmith



Series: Empress Emily the Wise/Little Girls With Knives [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: High Chaos Week 2015, high chaos ending, mute corvo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:35:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demiksmith/pseuds/demiksmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sits, and smiles, and waits, a patient doll as the men around her argue and fight amongst themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plaything

**Author's Note:**

> For High Chaos Week 2015

He returns bloody and silent, eyes tired and hard as he speaks with the Loyalists. Well, he doesn’t speak, so much as get talked at. The Loyalists never bothered learning to sign, so Corvo is left speechless, in more ways than one. He is hard, growing harder by the day, his face gaunt and pale. But he always takes the time to sit with her, smiling as she speaks about her day. His hands are rough, but he is always so careful with her, with her drawings, and she warms a little, feels a little less fragile, when he is with her.

 

“Corvo, take that mask off, you don’t want to frighten little Miss Emily.” Samuel scolds once, as Emily darts toward them. Corvo moves slowly, arms stiff and not moving quite right, as he works the mask free, giving Emily plenty of time to see it. It’s a wretched thing, she thinks, metal and tattered cloth, fashioned after a skull. There is thick, drying blood smeared across it, and the wires holding the jaw shut glimmer faintly in the fading sunlight. It’s put away, into some pocket or another, deep in Corvo’s coat, and so she puts it out of her mind, as she hugs him tightly, ignoring the signs of _wait, I’m dirty_.

It’s later, when she is trying to sleep, that the mask returns to her thoughts. And it is a frightening thing, a mask made for death. She knows Corvo desperately hopes her to be ignorant of his business, but it’s not difficult to put a bloody blade and clothes together with violence. And she would be afraid, both of the mask and of him, if it weren’t for memories of hide and seek, of learning to read his signing, of gentle smiles and laughter. This is Corvo, and he is all that is left of her home.

 

The days seem darker, and each time Corvo returns to the Hound Pits Pub, he is bloodier and harder, as though each trip on the water with Samuel strips away just a little more of his humanity. Emily plays at not noticing the way his fists clench as the Loyalists speak over him, plays at ignoring the smell of blood drenched leather as he hugs her goodnight, but she can feel that same darkness ebbing in.

 

When they tell her Corvo is dead, she smiles and nods and follows them where they lead. _Corvo isn’t dead_ , she thinks as she smiles at Havelock, _how can you kill death?_

She sits, and smiles, and waits, a patient doll as the men around her argue and fight amongst themselves. They think she is their plaything, but _just wait, wait for Death to come_.

And he does. Resplendent in bloody red, the ever present mask smeared with it, he comes. Havelock is grabbing her, shouting words that are torn away by the wind, but Emily doesn’t care to listen anyway. She only has eyes for Corvo, for Death. Havelock falls, and takes her with him, but Death catches her, staining her pale wrists red, ( _red red red_ ) as he pulls her up. He holds her close, and bloodied leather smells like _home_ , and she is safe.

 

Years later, when Corvo has truly become death, when his body is laid beside her mother’s, Emily remembers him fondly.

“Empress, do you not fear death, as all mortals do?” A strange young man asks.

“No.” Emily replies, her back straight. She is no one’s plaything now, she is hard, cold, and she is just like _him_. “Death is my father. And what little girl doesn’t love her father?”

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Plaything](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11325534) by [KeeperofSeeds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperofSeeds/pseuds/KeeperofSeeds)




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